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STEVENS POINT – With a lot of new faces littering the lineup, Stevens Point Area Senior High baseball coach Kraig Terpstra understands he’ll have to take the good with the bad early in the season until some of the inexperienced players settle into varsity competition.

Saturday was a perfect case in point for Terpstra, who dealt with the good, the bad and unfortunately at times, the ugly.

There was plenty of good, especially at the plate where SPASH pounded out a combined 19 runs and 25 hits in a nonconference doubleheader with Green Bay Preble.

The bad came in the form of pitchers being inconsistent within the strike zone. Some shoddy defense at times — SPASH was charged with seven errors — would be classified as the ugly on this day.

Put it all together and not so surprisingly the Panthers had to settle for a split against the Hornets, winning the opener 13-4 and falling in the nightcap 7-6 at Bukolt Park.

“With a lot of new starters, I guess I expected some growing pains for us,” Terpstra said. “I know we had some mistakes that I think we can fix, I really like my team.”

He really had to like what he saw in the opener for several reasons.

For starters, the Panthers refused to hang their heads after falling into an early 4-0 hole. Instead, they went to work at the plate and took control of the contest by scoring seven times in the bottom of the third inning.

Brady Erickson doubled home a pair of runs in the decisive frame, while TJ Schrank finished with three RBI. Jacob Ligenza and Trev Anderson each scored two runs, while Schrank, Andrew Ruzek and Anderson had two hits apiece.

While they were taking business with their bats in a 15-hit attack, pitchers Noel Winch and Nathan Olds used their arms to keep the Hornets in check after a tough start.

“I thought we really started to hit the ball,” Terpstra said. “I thought the guys played a pretty resilient game (in the first one) and moved on from what happened early.

“I thought our pitchers did OK,” the coach added. “I’d like to see us close hitters out better and throw more strikes. It seemed like we committed the Cardinal sin and walked hitters to lead off innings and that lights a flame under the other team.”

Kris Kastberg supplied the spark Preble was looking for in the second game.

Facing a 3-0 deficit after two innings, Kastberg stepped up with the bases loaded and drilled a double on a 3-2 count to the gap in right-center to plate all three runners. He then scored on a single by Brandon Kellner to put the Hornets up 4-3.

Kellner’s RBI double in the top of the fifth gave Preble the lead for good and Caleb Schoenholz added a much-needed insurance run in the sixth with a solo home run.

SPASH didn’t help its cause with four errors that led to three unearned runs.

“Obviously, we got it handed to us (in the first game), but I was pleased we were able to extend the game to a full game,” Preble coach Andy Conard said. “We stayed the course (in the second game).

“We were looking for that one big hit (Kastberg’s double) and then it’s important to keep chipping away and tack on runs,” Conard added. “You need every run you can get against a team that can hit like Point. It turned out to be a 90-foot game (with the tying run on third).”

Austin Reed took the loss for the Panthers in relief of Anderson.

Ted Kearney went 3-for-3 with a run scored and an RBI, while DJ Drohner and Ruzek had two hits apiece.